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Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

peopleofcolorintech.com

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Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#111

Post by braingenious »

PKop wrote: post #97
braingenious wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi do you have any thoughts about bricks made with plastic or are you just here to air your grievances about some perceived cultural slight?

When a blog is titled "Black Woman Engineer Turns Plastic Into Bricks That Are Reportedly Stronger Than Concrete" on a blog called People of Color in Tech, it's going to get commented on, don't be naive. Maybe if these qualifiers aren't worthy of discussion, they shouldn't be used. If the article was titled "Engineer does X.." on a tech blog not singling out a particular race, it wouldn't be an issue. If bricks and p…

> If the article was titled "Engineer does X.." on a tech blog

The title on HN is:

Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

I clicked on it and read it because of that. I am, unfortunately for the sake of this conversation, of the opinion that it’s an article about somebody that made plastic bricks. I understand that you appear to have read some sort of referendum about race that didn’t involve engineering or bricks.

If you scroll around the rest of the responses to this article, you’ll find that many people are discussing bricks. Considering that so many of these people, myself included, have completely mistaken the subject of this article, I encourage you to continue complaining about race!

Thank you for your bravery, without your valuable input, nobody would know how important it is to be offended by this!

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#112

Post by braingenious »

colpabar wrote: post #96
braingenious wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really mind when people make websites about others folks like me in tech. I do roll my eyes when people ignore the contents of an interesting article and unprompted go out of their way to inform everybody that they find the existence of sites like that to be silly.

I know it's off topic, but I'm just curious. Also, the website does seem to be silly regardless of who it's for, given that two of the top stories are about NFTs.

I think everybody can and should roll their eyes at any site that shills NFTs, no matter the race, gender or creed of the URL 8-)

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#113

Post by woodruffw »

jazzythom wrote: post #103

Didn't I just read about an engineered enzyme to break down metric tons of plastic waste? You can’t have both these futures. Because your roads will melt and buildings will collapse. There needs to be some coordination or authority

Sure you can, for the same reason that wood buildings and gasoline can coexist. You engineer around risks, and don’t introduce things that don’t need to be introduced.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#114

Post by whynotminot »

jazzythom wrote: post #110
hardwaresofton wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We absolutely can have both of these futures -- if people use the right tool for the right job and both of these tools can coexist (even if not used in the exact solution). Also roads may just be the first use case for this technology but new thinkers and new people will find new usecases.

What about the malicious actors in the crowd? This is an asymmetric vector with significant latency

A malicious actor could also dump termites on your lawn, start a fire, throw a rock through your window, etc.

What you bring up is a point for the police to investigate, and maybe a few more lines in your insurance policy to cover. If you’ve made an enemy, it doesn’t really matter what your house is made of.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#115

Post by chrsw »

colpabar wrote: post #64

Do people of color ever roll their eyes at websites like this? Does it ever just seem silly? edit: I am white, and my question is not for white people. I call it “peopleofcoloronhackernews” :^)

No, it doesn't show up on the scale of concern over people who are skeptical of my ability and dismiss my contributions because they're blinded by bias.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#116

Post by guelo »

lelandfe wrote: post #82
astatine wrote: post #70

Mixing plastics with asphalt has been tried for roads in India for many years now. There is one stretch near where I live which was done 10+ years ago. There is an official policy on trying this, as a pilot, for any agency that wishes to use it. See: https://www.prakati.in/use-of-plastic-for-road-construction-... The road which I use occasionally seems reasonably good as roads go. Unless you see the boards informing…

I think plastic probably makes more sense as a construction material than for roads. Cars are really tough on roads. I have to imagine that plastic in roads would get shredded into microplastics and wind up all over the place.

Would this be any worse for the environment than the petroleum in asphalt roads?

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#117

Post by colpabar »

Animats wrote: post #109
EamonnMR wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might have been shredded-tire playground walkway material.

Not that soft. It looked like rigid concrete, but sagged a bit.

Maybe the foundation below the bricks was a bit unstable?

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#119

Post by suifbwish »

astatine wrote: post #70

Mixing plastics with asphalt has been tried for roads in India for many years now. There is one stretch near where I live which was done 10+ years ago. There is an official policy on trying this, as a pilot, for any agency that wishes to use it. See: https://www.prakati.in/use-of-plastic-for-road-construction-... The road which I use occasionally seems reasonably good as roads go. Unless you see the boards informing…

I recommend reading this in Lucasarts gaming style text:

Meanwhile deep in a laboratory somewhere deep in the Caribbean…… several scientists hell bent on solving the landfill problem work frantically on bacteria which are capable of breaking down plastics as their primary food source.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#120

Post by noveltyaccount »

SCAQTony wrote: post #14
iancmceachern wrote: post #7

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar. Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

The bricks will aspirate toxic chemicals when exposed to direct sunlight: "...Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. ..." https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/everyday…

Will wall finishing techniques (water resistant barrier, rain screen & cladding, lime render, drywall, etc) help manage this?
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